1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to the field of fishing. More particularly, the present invention relates to the field of commercial fishing and commercial fisheries management. More particularly still, the present invention relates to gathering, recording, analyzing, and reporting of data in the field of commercial fishing and commercial fisheries management.
2. Prior Art
Since ancient times, the pursuit of fishing has paid no heed to xe2x80x9cthe one that got away,xe2x80x9d except in tavern tales and sea-faring novels. This traditional mindset persists today. Among fishermen, from solitary anglers to operators of commercial fishing vessels, the xe2x80x9ccatchxe2x80x9dxe2x80x94those fish that are actually brought backxe2x80x94is the only thing that is ever accurately identified, sorted, counted, and recorded. Information is rarely kept, and more rarely reported, about fish that had been trapped, hooked, or netted, and then thrown back for being the wrong size, the wrong species, or in the wrong condition (such as egg-bearing females of certain species). As a result, information that could be noted by individual fishermen, and that might even be of great benefit to those same individual fishermen, as well as to the fishing industry as a whole, is customarily lost simply as a matter of standard practice. In general, there is currently no reliable xe2x80x9ccatch and release dataxe2x80x9d relative to the fishing industry from fishermen and no currently practical means of obtaining such data.
Further, information about where fish are caught, whether they are kept or released, is also traditionally held close. The location of an angler""s fishing hole and a fishing boat captain""s fishing ground have been given the status of trade secrets since time immemorial.
There were and are good reasons, grounded in competition for sport and for commercial purposes, for keeping secrets. From these rational concerns the traditions and standard practices of fishing have evolved. To a large extent, also, there have been practical reasons for fishermen not to take accurate note of detailsxe2x80x94in particular catch, release, and location dataxe2x80x94having no immediate importance to them, while they are in the heat of battle with the sea, the weather, the wildlife, and the passage of time. Although some fishermen may write down some of this information, such notes are almost always kept in secret. The result of traditional secretiveness and standard practice among fishermen, however, is the loss of accurate information about fish stocks and the condition of fishing grounds. This remains so even in the present period, a time of dwindling stocks and endangered fishing grounds, when such information, if kept and used by an individual fisherman, could be used to increase the efficiency and profitability of that fisherman""s own commercial enterprise. On a larger scale, the aggregation of such information is of vital importance to the effective management of fisheries and to the health and the very survival of the fishing industry. Nevertheless, the tradition of secrecy coupled with a mistrust of the ability of government agencies to manage fisheries, keeps such information from being effectively gathered. Furthermore, this mistrust of government regulation and management manifests itself in the reticence among fishermen to cooperate with the information-gathering efforts of government regulators and their agenciesxe2x80x94such as regulation-mandated random spot-checks of individual fishing operations.
Currently, information is general and uncertain about fish stocks and the condition of fishing grounds as a whole, about the health and abundance (or lack of it) of the many commercial varieties, of their location in abundance or deficit, of their migration patterns, and of their breeding patterns, seasons, and efficiencies. The gathering of most of this vital information currently falls almost exclusively to a few public inspectors and private researchers. In states that support and control the fishing industry, state governments attempt to provide, within budgetary constraints, the inspection of and reporting on fishing operations and on the condition of fishing grounds and of fish stocks through variously named xe2x80x9cdepartments of marine resources.xe2x80x9d From time to time, this information may be augmented by the efforts of non-governmental fishing organizationsxe2x80x94e.g., the FAO, which is part of the United Nationsxe2x80x94and by the necessarily narrow interests of academic or institutional researchers. Currently, the limited data collected by these means, and the analysis of such data, form the sole basis of governmental regulation of the fishing industry. The trouble is that, relative to the size of the industry and the volume of information necessary to form the basis of valid judgments, the number of persons collecting such information is small, making the accumulation of a statistically significant volume of fishery-related data difficult or, arguably, impossible.
For example, the State of Maine currently depends on part-time volunteers, a few paid inspectors (primarily seeing catches as they are brought to port), and academic researchers for the gathering of information relative to lobster fishing, an industry carried on in Maine by as many as 6,000 fishing vessels operating over thousands of square miles in the Gulf of Maine. The fact that vessels are not generally available to these few information gatherers for their own use limits their effectiveness. Thus, these volunteersxe2x80x94and occasionally government-employed inspectorsxe2x80x94usually operate aboard the vessels of commercial fishermen who, because of longstanding and growing mistrust of inspectors and regulators, may offer less than full cooperation and candor, and may even give misleading responses to inquiries. Further, even when such an information-gathering effort is augmented by that of institutional researchers, the additional information that can be applied specifically to the analysis of particular fish stocks in particular fishing grounds is meager because the focus of the research by these institutions often does not provide information that is useful for the commercial fishing industry. The resulting paucity of data is a contributing factor in the development of guidelines and policies that are generally not accepted by fishermen.
What is needed is a practical method for gathering fishery-industry-related data. What is further needed is such a method that is employable by an individual commercial fisherman at sea. What is yet further needed is such a method that will gather data from many individual fishermen, combine the data to a single fishery-related database, and generate reports useful to the commercial fishing industry. What is still yet further needed is such a method that will hold confidential certain data provided by an individual fisherman and provide the individual fisherman with confidential reports useful to the fisherman""s enterprise.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a practical method for gathering fishery-industry-related data. It is a further object of the present invention to provide such a method that is employable by an individual commercial fisherman at sea. It is a yet further object to provide such a method that will gather data from many individual fishermen, combine the data to a single fishery-industry-related database, and generate reports useful to the commercial fishing industry. It is a still yet further object to provide such a method that will hold confidential certain data provided by an individual fisherman and to provide the individual fisherman with confidential reports useful to the fisherman""s enterprise.
The individual fisherman making use of the method of the present invention brings a data-collection-and-storage-device with him on-board, generally on his commercial fishing vessel. The data-collection-and-storage-device can be of any type that is suitable for entering and storing data collected by fishermen, and can include general data input and storage devices and voice-recognition input devices that are direct-wired to or connected via radio transmission to a data storage device. Preferably, though, the data collector is individualized in a way set out below. Although just a simple counting and storage device of a type easily designed by those familiar with the art, the datallection-and-storage-device is designed to facilitate the entry of the data that is important to the particular fishing industry in which it is to be used. In addition to accepting and storing data about fish caughtxe2x80x94including those subsequently releasedxe2x80x94as nets, lines, traps, and the like, are hauled in, the data-collection-and-storage-device associates each set of catch-and-release data in its memory with the location of the vessel at the date and time the data was entered. The location of the vessel is best defined by a longitude/latitude specification. A number of conventional navigational systems and the like that provide location in terms of longitude and latitude can be tied into the data collector for this purpose. The artificial-earth-satellite-based Global Positioning System (GPS) is the system in general use at present that lends itself most conveniently to this function. Most fishing vessels are already equipped with GPS instruments, and it is a straightforward matter to tie the output of such instruments to the data collector of the present invention for the stated purpose. LORAN may also be used to determine vessel location, as long as the vessel is close enough to land to receive a signal.
The data-collection-and-storage-device is initialized at the first power-up, meaning that information is entered relating to the fisherman using the device, the particular vessel, and the type of fishing engaged in. This information is maintained in the device until it is intentionally changed by the user of the device. During a fishing excursion, the data-collection-and-storage-device is used to record all catch-and-release data. In particular, the device records each catch and each release and the reason for a release, such as the catch is the wrong size, the wrong species, and/or in the wrong conditionxe2x80x94e.g., egg-bearing females, where such restrictions apply. In the Preferred Embodiment, to facilitate recording the releases, the data-collection-and-storage-device is especially adapted to, if not specially fabricated for, each particular kind of fishing and for each particular target specie or set of species. Additional data may also be recorded, depending upon the opportunities available in a particular commercial fishing operation. Additional data that may be automatically recorded by or manually entered into the device include water temperature, water depth, weather conditions, water salinity, water currents, and tide phase. It is, of course, possible to use general data input and storage devices and the appropriate software to adapt the data collection means so as to facilitate data input for the fishing industry or a particular type of fishing activity. Thus, it is understood that it is within the scope of the present invention to use any type of data-collection-and-storage-device that is suitable for data collection according to the method of the present invention.
At the end of a fishing excursion, the fisherman transfers the contents of the data-collection-and-storage-device to a central data repository, either directly or via a receiving station. The receiving station is a computer that holds the data for transfer to the central data repository at a later time and, for the fisherman, the procedure of transferring data is the same, whether to a receiving station or to the central data repository. In practical terms, the central data repository is a computer incorporating software applications for the manipulation and analysis of data and the production of desired reports. It also incorporates provisions for data security. The method of transfer, whether to a receiving station or the central data repository, is usually by telephone line and is such that the proprietary nature of each data contribution can be respected and the confidentiality of the data source (the identity of the individual fisherman) ensured. To maintain confidentiality, the data can be encrypted during the transfer and the data records related to each particular source (fisherman) can be stored in individually secure files. The data source may also remain encrypted in the central data repository.
Certain data can be deemed to be proprietary to the individual fishermanxe2x80x94such as location of catch and sales revenuesxe2x80x94and the analysis of that data as it accumulates over time, and be made available only to the individual fisherman who was the source of the data. The particular reports that can be returned periodically to each fisherman about that fisherman""s catches can also include information needed for reporting to regulatory agencies. Indeed, the mandated reports themselves may be directly generated by the central data repository, and, by agreement, even filed on behalf of the fisherman. A variety of confidential reports may be generated for the fisherman, such as: reports for business accounting; accumulated historical reports about the individual""s customary fishing grounds related to such factors as time, place, and the types and/or species of fish found; and analyses of the efficiency of traps, nets, and lines, related to the bait used, the location, and the season. Further, these reports may be provided as textual reports, graphs, or mapping data, or in any format useful to a particular fisherman. The value of such reportsxe2x80x94in providing reports required by regulatory agencies as well as valuable information from which to hone a more efficient and profitable enterprisexe2x80x94furnishes sufficient motivation for individual fishermen to act as data sources that feed an aggregate fishery-related database.
Fishery-related information is that information that is placed in an aggregation data pool in the central data repository. Such information can be stripped of its source identification so that it anonymously combines all such data gathered from all sources about a wide variety of fishing methods and fish species, if it necessary to hold certain fisherman data confidential. In this aggregation data pool, data provided by fishermen may also be combined with data contributed by regulatory agencies and research institutions. The resulting data pool is on so large a scale that individual fishermen data, including their favorite fishing grounds, are not identifiable. In any event, the aggregate of data so collected is large enough, and of sufficient detail, to form statistically significant data samples on which to base public policy and industry practices related to the regulation, management, and use of the fisheries as a whole. The method of the present invention thus envisions the use of this data pool for both routine and custom generation of reports, in formats and contents appropriate to the needs of those agencies and institutions who seek to manage fisheries and set commercial fishing policies and practices. In this way, the present invention allows those individual fisherman directly affected by fishing regulations to participate directly in providing the informational basis of those regulations.
Various agencies and institutions have access to the general fishery-related data pool, although it is possible that an authorized agency would have sole access to the data and would manage and analyze the data and prepare reports for the regulatory agencies, the institutions, and the individual fishermen. It is also possible that, rather than maintaining confidential accounts for the individual fishermen, the fishermen would relinquish their claim to confidentiality and release all data, i.e. data not stripped of source identification, to the general fishery-related data pool for regulatory purposes.
Briefly, then, the method of the present invention includes the following steps: An individual fisherman embarking upon a fishing excursion brings on-board a data-collection-and-storage-device that has been initialized with data identifying the fisherman and the vessel. During the excursion, concurrent with each catch being taken aboard, the fisherman enters into the data-collection-and-storage-device data about the catch, including the number of each type or variety of fish kept, the number of each type or variety of fish released, and the reason for the release. The location of the catch, the time and date of the catch are attached to the data by the data-collection-and-storage-device. Other relevant physical and environmental conditions during the catch can be manually entered by the fisherman or automatically recorded by the data-collection-and-storage-device. The record of each catch is stored in the data-collection-and-storage-device and the collection of stored data is held there until the fisherman transfers the data to a receiving station or a central data repository. This is typically done after the fisherman returns to shore, via a telephone link, but may also be done from any location, provided the means to link to the receiving station or central data repository are available. The fisherman""s data is encrypted during the transfer to ensure confidentiality. In the Preferred Embodiment, two effective copies of the data are made and maintained in the central data repository: a fisherman copy and an agency copy. The fisherman copy is placed into and held in an individually secure fisherman account that contains only the specific records deposited by an individually identified fisherman. Further, the means of identifying the owner of such individually secure accounts is itself encoded, and not directly accessible, in the data records. The agency copy is stripped of its fisherman-identifying component and stored in a logically or physically separate area of the central data repository. Thisxe2x80x9cstrippedxe2x80x9d data is integrated into a composite, fishery-wide database containing all of the fishery-related data for all of the individual data contributions. In the secure portion of the central data repository, data in each confidentially-maintained account is separately manipulated and analyzed, and reports are generated that are returned exclusively to the fisherman who contributed the data. These reports include reports required by regulatory agencies, business and accounting reports, and reports related to the efficiency of the fisherman""s fishing operations and methods. In the composite, fishery-wide database, where the security of specific records is still generally maintained, the combined, accumulated data from all sources is separately manipulated and analyzed, and reports of aggregate raw data, as well as analysis of the data, are made available to regulatory agencies and public or private institutions engaged or interested in the regulation and management of fisheries. In alternative embodiments of the present invention, the individual fisherman relinquishes a claim to confidentiality and releases individual fisherman data directly into the aggregation, fishery-wide database.
While the Preferred Embodiment below describes an application of the method of the present invention to one type of commercial fishing, the generality of the method should not be overlooked. Also, where a particular device suited to that one type of commercial fishing is described in the Preferred Embodiment, other analogous devices better suited to others types of commercial fishing are not dispensed with.